Dmitry Olegovich Jakovenko was born in Omsk, but spent his childhood in the Northern Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk, over 3000 kilometers from Moscow. He learned the game at the age of 3 and was competing with adults at the local chess club in Nizhnevartovsk by the time he was 5. He reached Russian 1st category at the age of 7 during the 1990 city championship, gained his candidate master title in 1994 at age 11, the International Master title in 1997 at the age of 14, and the Grandmaster title at age 18 in 2001. While competing for the U10 World Championship in Bratislava, he met Aleksander S Nikitin (Garry Kasparov ’s head trainer at the time), who then became his coach. Jakovenko went professional in 2004.

Jakovenko’s academic record was sparkling. He was a straight-5 student (the equivalent of straight As), won a zonal final of the all-Russian Mathematical Olympiad, graduated from Moscow State University after studying computing, math and cybernetics, and eventually received a PhD in economics.

Championships

<Youth> In 1991, Jakovenko won the U8 championship of Soviet Russia and in 1993, he won the Russian U10 championship with a perfect score of 9/9, a result which qualified him to compete in the World U10 Championship held in Bratislava, where he placed 6th. He also won the Russian U14 Championship in 1994 after being forced to withdraw from the U12 Russian Championship due to injury (the scar can still be seen under his right eye). Shortly afterwards, he competed in the World U14 Championship in Hungary, but finished 11th. In 1999, he was runner-up at the 1999 World U16 Chess championship and in 2001 he won the U18 World Championship with 9/11. The following year, he placed =11th with 8/13 at the 41st World Junior Championships (2002).

Qualifying for the Grand Prix series of 2014-15 as one of the organizer's nominees, Jakovenko scored a sole 10th at the FIDE Grand Prix Tashkent (2014), winning the 30 Grand Prix points that are awarded for that placement. At FIDE Grand Prix Tbilisi (2015), he placed outright second with 6.5/11, adding 140 GP points to his tally, and putting him back into contention for a top 2 finish in the series. He came close in the final leg of series, the FIDE Grand Prix Khanty-Mansiysk (2015), with =1st scoring 6.5/11. He needed to win the event outright to place in the top 2 overall. His shared first placed him 3rd overall in the series, and first alternate for the Candidates 2016.

He has another bite because of his result in the European Championship in 2014 that qualified him to play in the World Cup (2015). He needs to finish in the final to qualify for the Candidates Tournament of 2016. Alternatively, should either Nakamura or Caruana finish in the World Cup final, this will create a vacancy in one or both of the top two qualification spot in the Grand Prix series for 2014-16 thus enabling Jakovenko to move into the Candidates as first alternate. In the meantime, Jakovenko faced determined opposition in the first round of the World Cup when he was paired with the young and previously untitled Ilia Iljiushenok, with whom he drew the standard games, and the two sets of rapid tiebreakers before winning the blitz tiebreakers to advance to the second round where he defeated Egyptian and African #1 Bassem Amin. In the third round Vassily Ivanchuk to advance to the Round of Sixteen (round 4) where he meets the so far spectacularly successful Pavel Eljanov who has won every game in the first three rounds. Jakovenko stopped Eljanov's game-winning streak with draws in the standard games, but lost to Eljanov in the rapid game tiebreaker to bow out of the event.

<Olympiad> Jakovenko won the reserve board gold medal at the Dresden Olympiad (2008). 1 In the Chess Olympiad (2010), he played for Russia C,2 scoring +8 =10 -1 for a playing percentage of 68.4%. In the Chess Olympiad (2012) held in Istanbul, he won team silver and scored 7/9 on board 5, winning him the individual gold medal for that board.

<Russian Premier league> Jakovenko has competed every year since 2002. His best results came when he played top board for Tomsk between 2004 and 2009 inclusive. With Tomsk, he won both individual and team gold medals in the 2004 and 2005 team championships and also in the Russian Team Championship (2007). In total he has won 4 team golds (including in the Russian Team Championship (2009)), 3 individual golds, and individual silver, a team bronze and an individual bronze. His current team since 2010 is Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk region.

<Russia-China Summit> He played top board with the Russian team in the 2006 match between the two countries, with the men's team winning largely as a result of his excellent returns, although the aggregate score of the men's and women's teams was won by China. He also played in the Russia - China Match (2007) (won by China by 52.5-47.5), in the Russia - China Match (2008) (won by China 26-24) and was the best performing player in the Russia - China (2012), won by Russia.

<Other> Jakovenko has also played team championships in Spain, Greece and France and in the Bundesliga. His most recent success in the French competition was playing for Clichy, which came second in the French Team Championships (2011).

Rapid

Jakovenko participated in the Yaroslav Mudryj 2014 Tournament of Champions held in Russia in August 2014, and placed 2nd.

Rating and rankings

Jakovenko entered the world's top 100 in the July 2005 FIDE list, having crossed over the 2600 mark in the April 2005 list, and has remained there since. His rating rose above 2700 in April 2007 and peaked at 2760 in January 2009 and April 2009 when he reached his peak world rankings of 7th and 5th respectively (also Russian number 1).

Don Cossacks: He plays like a computer:D
I'm wondering now on what would be the composition of the Russian Team in the Olympiad.But I hope it would be like this:
1.Grischuk
2.Jakovenko
3.Malakhov/Karjakin
4.Tomashevsky

yalie: <Don Cossacks: He plays like a computer:D
I'm wondering now on what would be the composition of the Russian Team in the Olympiad.But I hope it would be like this: 1.Grischuk
2.Jakovenko
3.Malakhov/Karjakin
4.Tomashevsky>

Beautiful.LMS: <goosesmack2: it is good to see jakovenko on his way out of the top 10, as he definitely does not deserve to be there... everyone talks about his amazing endgames but they really are not anything spectacular... try checking some out by kramnik or ponomariov or capablanca or akiba rubinstein if you want to get in line with good endgames.>

This guy is an awesome player, and a lot better than you'll ever be. Why do have to say mean things about him? Are you jealous?

ex0duz: For such a strong player(2745, or 2733 according to his bio), he doesn't seem to have very many fans huh?

Or is it because he's Russian, which put him in at 'only' the 7th place compared to his compatriots? Doesn't really explain that much, since Svidler is 4th at 2739, not that much higher than him. Is it because he doesn't speak any english? I can't remember him speaking english or giving any english interviews

And lastly, what his is scar from? It's one of the coolest looking scars i've ever seen. It reminds me of those scars that you only see in manga/comic books, as a result of them getting sliced from a sword and them now having sight in only one eye.. like Zoro from One Piece!

NOTE: You need to pick a username and password to post a reply.
Getting your account takes less than a minute, totally anonymous,
and 100% free--plus, it
entitles you to features otherwise unavailable.
Pick your username now and join the chessgames community!
If you already have an account, you should
login now.

Please observe our posting guidelines:

No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language.

No spamming, advertising, or duplicating posts.

No personal attacks against other members.

Nothing in violation of United States law.

No posting personal information of members.

See something that violates our rules? Blow the whistle and inform an administrator.

NOTE: Keep all discussion on the topic of this page.
This forum is for this specific player and nothing else. If you want to discuss chess in general, or
this site, you might try the Kibitzer's Café.

Messages
posted by Chessgames members do not necessarily represent the views of Chessgames.com, its employees, or sponsors.